READER’S EDITORIAL: THE STORY OF A FLORIDA COMPANY TAKEOVER OF JACUMBA’S WATER

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By Howard W Cook, former chair, Jacumba Sponsor Group

Photo: Lake Jacumba

 

November 1, 2015 (Jacumba Hot Springs)--A massive project poses an unprecedented risk to Jacumba Hot Springs' water supply. 

BACKGROUND

Jacumba Hot Springs is an old town going back to 1860 and blessed with a productive hot spring and several other good wells. It is located 70 miles East of San Diego on Old Highway 80 in a valley spread out on both sides of the border. Its high desert transition zone location at 2800 feet just before nearby Interstate 8 plunges to the desert seem an unlikely place for a water takeover by Nextera, a Florida Green Energy developer.

Other green energy developers, however, have already received the approval of the JCSD (Jacumba’s water company) for water supplies, all projected to take water starting in 2016 or 2017 and continuing through 2017 and beyond. The Nextera development, called Jacumba Solar LLC, wants an immediate (2016) 60 acre feet or 20 million gallons, Tule Wind was previously approved by JCSD for 20 to 25 million gallons, and Soitec Rugged 850 acre Solar farm was JCSD approved for 20 to 40 million gallons of water. The Soitec Rugged project was just reapproved by the Board of Supervisors. The impact of the Soitec and the Tule wind projects on the Jacumba water supply is difficult to measure and depends on the timing, but altogether or serially it will be very significant in our current drought situation. This story, however, just relates to Jacumba Solar LLC, its solar project and its new water vendor status.

JACUMBA GEOLOGY/HYDROLOGY

The geology and therefore the hydrology of Jacumba Hot Springs, the town, is very complex (in both the west side and the east side); the difficult thing to assess in Jacumba is at what point is the extraction of groundwater, whether potable, raw or non-potable, too much. When will it cause groundwater and aquifer collapse along with a collapse of land values--failure of the Jacumba Spa’s springs along with the jobs it creates? Also impacted would be Jacumba's lake that is home to the endangered tricolored Blackbird and the die-off of Jacumbas tree’s in its urban forest.

Charles E Hauser, noted hydrologist and expert on Jacumba water says in a 2014 report that “during a current regional drought, groundwater is not something to be used carelessly” and goes on to say that there is still much to be learned about the hydrology of Jacumba.” Dudek, a consulting company working for and on behalf of all of the aforementioned green energy developers, has done all of the other recent completed Jacumba hydrology studies. Dudek’ s omissions and bias are huge and should be set aside. In fact, Dudek hydrology studies were done by Dudek hydrologist Trey Driscoll.  He usually is the one asking for Jacumba water as described below. The big question is; why does Jacumba’s water company (JCSD) want to take risks with its drinking water and groundwater supplies, especially in this current drought?

USUAL ENERGY PROJECT JACUMBA WATER PROCESSES

All of the above listed projects Jacumba Solar, Soitec Rugged and Tule Wind, as well as the completed ECO substation project, fit a pattern--which is, that they all hire the same Dudek hydrology consultant, usually Trey Driscoll who  does a tailored water study.  The developers’ hydrologist makes a call on the key Jacumba person in this process. A person we will refer to as Jacumba”s Green Energy Activist, They discuss mitigation moneys and/or JCSD desired projects and they come to an agreement on the amount of water required. The Green Energy Activist involves someone on the JCSD Board, usually the President and jointly with Trey Driscoll they develop a county 399W “approval to provide water form.” The Board, with Trey Driscoll in attendance, later approves the form. The JCSD Manager signs the form and Trey takes it back to the developer. The Green Energy Activist is the key person because for the past ten years, he has heavily influenced a majority of the JCSD Board, its President, and the JCSD General Manager. Sometimes in the case of the completed ECO project, limits are placed on the amount of water that can be provided over a chosen period of time.  

WHAT IS GOING ON THIS TIME, WITH JACUMBA SOLAR LLC PROJECT OR IN ITS NEW ROLE AS WATER SUPPLIER

On October 5, 2015, The JCSD Board, In special session, approved by 4 to 1 a “WATER SUPPLY AGREEMENT BETWEEN JACUMBA COMMUNITY SERVICES DISTRICT AND JACUMBA SOLAR, LLC (AKA Nextera, a subsidiary of Florida Power And Light, INC.). Interestingly, JCSD had previously hired (for $5,000 dollars) The San Diego County Counsel’s office to create and defend this agreement for JCSD. The County Counsel’s attorney, Rachel was present at the October 5th special meeting and at times, she defended the terms of the agreement.

 Following are the unbelievable arrangements included in this “water supply agreement” (sales agreement) and the related JCSD enabling resolutions also approved at the October 05, 2015 special meeting:

  • Jacumba Solar LLC will, on or before January 15, 2016 pay JCSD $350,000 plus most of the funding for drilling a new well and rehabbing a second well. Jacumba Solar LLC also funded two hydrology studies and are mostly funding a new water terminal facility with two large 10,000-gallon tanks including a new road in the town park and athletic fields area. (JCSD revenue for each of the last 3 years has ranged from $100,000 to $140,000.)
  • In the final listed agreement recital it says,  “that the LLC is not required to use the water for any particular project”. This allows Nextera to be able to sell any of the water covered by the agreement to any one, (the agreement term is 31 to 41 years) .
  • Agreement item 7 says” The LLC may sell or transport the water purchased pursuant to this agreement to third parties, including for use outside the territorial boundaries of JCSD”. This says it all; Sale of Jacumba Water becomes a profit Center for both NEXTERA and JCSD. It also facilitates any other project development giving county planning departments with an automatic water source without approval from Jacumba, even if its domestic water supply and neighboring wells will be negatively impacted. 
  • Agreement item 5 states “JCSD acknowledges that notwithstanding the current multi year severe drought condition there is substantial evidence of sufficient surplus non-potable water supplies to provide water to the LLC pursuant to this agreement.”

Wait a minute, all of the so called non-potable wells (wells 6, Park well, Highland Center well, are within a half mile radius of the JCSD primary domestic water well (well 4). Therefore regardless of the type of water withdrawn, there will be an effect to all local groundwater wells. The withdrawal rate in agreement item 2 can be at least 326,000 gallons per day over the initial withdrawal periods. The initial period will cover the withdrawal of 60 acre-feet or a total of about 20 million gallons of water for 180 working days or approximately eight months. The last major JCSD water project (Eco SDG&E Substation) had a limitation of 40,000 gallons a day (actually Eco stretched over a 20 month period for a total water withdrawal of 15 million gallons). If the 40,000 gallons of water set by the previous JCSD general manager was reasonable, then an 8 times increase per day and after two additional years of drought, will surely impact Jacumba domestic supplies, especially the first eight month intensive withdrawal period. In addition, since the term of the agreement is 31 years plus a ten year extension, the 326,000 gallons a day and up to a total of 100 million gallons a year, Jacumba Solar LLC can essentially have a 31 year plus ten year right to impact Jacumba water supplies.   

  • The total amount of water covered by the agreement is difficult to determine, because of the final third category and also the length of category two. Category one, the initial period is defined in agreement item 2 and equals 60 acre feet or about 20 million gallons. Nextera, at its discretion could stretch this out for even 31 to 41 years, according to the agreement. The second category of 4 acre feet a year or about 1.3  million gallons a year could start immediately and provide additional water during the 31 to 41 year period. This second category could total 41 years times, or a total water use of 164 acre-feet. The third category is shown in agreement item 8. The third category provides that, LLC can buy up to 10 acre-feet for any project. It has no time or time period limitations, so unless JCSD questions them as to its use, they can have an endless loop of 10-acre feet purchases. There are some limitations if JCSD wants to challenge them, but if JCSD does not, there is no limitation on the amount of water withdrawn, other than possibly, 100 million gallons a year.

THE BOTTOM LINE  

The bottom line is that Jacumba Solar LLC can sell construction water for 31 years plus ten years and up to 100 million gallons a year at the new Jacumba water service terminal to themselves or anyone else inside or outside of Jacumba. The largest and only large previous construction water sale to the SDG&E ECO substation was 15 million gallons over a 20 month period therefore there is unprecedented risk to Jacumba's domestic water supply as well as to about ten other residences with private wells, who use the same groundwater supplies as JCSD. There is also the safety risk of over 50 heavy diesel water trucks a day in town for at least a year. One construction water fill site is across the street from the Jacumba School with no sidewalks. The other fill site is adjacent to the town athletic fields, ball courts and a children’s playground as well as the Jacumba Senior and Community Center (Highland Center).

 

 

 

 


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Comments

Thanks for telling the other side of the story.

We welcome all views.

A key issues is the credibility of Dudek, which has been wrong on some major reports recently where a lot more water was used than Dudek predicted on various energy and construction projects, where the studies were funded by those companies that benefited from Dudek's findings.

Who paid for the Dudek study in Jacumba?

 

Rebuttal to Mr. Cook's editorial

I read with interest the Reader’s Editorial (East County Magazine November 1, 2015) by Howard Cook. Mr. Cook states that the Jacumba Community Services District (JCSD) is going to “take risks with its drinking water and groundwater supplies.” Jacumba’s water is not under any threat.  Scientific studies done by Dudek, a professional environmental and engineering firm, demonstrate that local aquifers can provide the requested water without harm to our supply.   JCSD has several sources of water - both potable and non-potable. Our source of potable water is well #4 in the alluvial Boundary Creek Aquifer.  Underlying the alluvial aquifer we have a fractured-rock source of non-potable, hot sulfurous water, which is known as well #6 which Mr. Cook refers to as “so-called non-potable.”  These two water sources do not mingle water, and as stated in Dudek’s reports, do not communicate.  JCSD has monitored the levels in both wells #4 and #6 during pumping operations and have observed no effect upon our potable water well during or after pumping of non-potable water.   A third source of water is the Flat Creek Aquifer, which is an alluvial aquifer that converges with the Boundary Creek Aquifer in the north end of Jacumba Valley near Carrizo Gorge. JCSD and its predecessor have historically pumped groundwater water from wells in the Flat Creek Aquifer and plan to construct a new production well there.  Production from the Flat Creek Aquifer will supply the majority of the non-potable water proposed to be sold for the several solar projects which may or may not be constructed. It should be considered that between 2006 and 2012 a local agricultural operation reportedly extracted 18,000 acre-feet of water (5.87 billion gallons) from the Flat Creek Aquifer yet the JCSD’s potable well #4 and non-potable well #6 showed no decline.  They were not affected by the withdrawal of the average of 8.22 acre-feet (2.68 milling gallons) every day for 6 years! JCSD additionally has potable water well #8 that will be going into production in the near future, and, another back-up water well #7, which may be used if required. Mr. Cook makes a big thing out of the prospect of Jacumba Solar LLC reselling JCSD water as they see fit.  This is not so sinister.  The JCSD will be pre-paid $250,000 for 40 acre-feet of water or $6,250 per acre-foot - money that is not refundable.  Jacumba Solar LLC will have the ability to receive the water they pre-paid and sell that water to any other CEQA-approved project they see fit.  Under the agreement, any profit over 10% which they might realize would be reimbursed to JCSD.  The agreement may be cancelled by either party after 3 years. The actual water sales agreement with Jacumba Solar LLC calls for 40 acre-feet to be delivered initially, with a possible addition of 20 acre feet, and, 4 acre-feet per year for the life of the project and 10 acre-feet “subject to availability” for project decommissioning. As noted above, either party may cancel the agreement after 3 years.   Lastly, engaging the office of County Counsel to assist the JCSD in negotiations with Jacumba Solar was the best move the district could make. Senior Deputy Rachel Witt’s help was and is invaluable in negotiating the agreement with Jacumba Solar and ensuring all of the actions the Board took were legal.   Eric Kallen Jacumba